i want to be honest as i review this wire and the Irwin 2078305 Vise-Grip 5-Inch Wire Stripper and Cutter wire cutters together. I have not installed a custom system in about 10 years! Back in Denver and in Jeddah i used to get into meticulous details of how these things should be cut and installed etc. Frankly middle age has caught up with me! and i take things much easier now without making a big fuss.

I am aware that any thick shielded wire will always do a good job of total sound imaging; this is especially true when you are working with a semi-highend A/V Receiver like Yamaha RX-V1800BL 7.1-Channel Home Theater Receiver (Black). This wire upgrade was about 5 years late! i have been just putting it off till i eventually get a mid-range amp. I had forgotten how this stuff works and it took me a while to get into it again.

Let me talk about my setup for a second before i dwell into the wire itself:

Yamaha RX-V1800BL 7.1-Channel Home Theater Receiver (Black)

Polk Audio Monitor Series CS2 Center Channel Speaker (Single, Cherry)

Yamaha YST-SW325 8-Inch Advanced YST II and QD-Bass Subwoofer, Black

Front and rear channels are still stock Panasonic speakers

Pioneer Elite BDP-05FD – Blu-Ray disc player – upscaling

Venturer HD DVD Player – SHD7000

OPPO DV-980H 1080p Up-Converting Universal DVD Player with HDMI and 7.1CH Audio

Apple MA711LL/A TV with 40GB Hard Drive

I was running some twisted pair cables on the entire grid of speakers and when i bought the amp, i was advised to upgrade the cables. For the center speaker cable explicitly i got the Monster Cable XPMS-30 Monster XP Clear Jacket (Compact Speaker Cable 30 ft. piece) (since i realized that center channel output has to be the best possible) The rest of the Polk/Panasonic stock speakers i got the ACOUSTIC RESEARCH AP-16100W 100′ White 16 Gauge Oxygen-Free Speaker Wire. Plus i needed a propper cutter.

The Irwin 2078305 Vise-Grip 5-Inch Wire Stripper and Cutter took care of that process. This is very good tool for novices who did not cut wires before! or in my case haven’t touched this in about 10 years! After a few tries, i felt i was cutting perfect wires again! It took me a while (sadly i lost allot of the Monster wire learning to cut again!) until i got the wires together.

But i can tell the sound definitely has changed from even those low end Panasonic speakers! u can tell how much a good speaker wire can change the total sound output. Plus not to mention that i am using a good AV receiver which needs good wires! They were easy to cut too; much easier than the Monster cables.

I ordered another set of these wires once more since i liked them so much! i may need them for the next 7.1 upgrades. They are reasonably priced too!

6/19-update – after it finally arrived, it turned out to be good stuff. Nice insulation, stripped easily, looks good. The printing on the one side is a bit light, so it took a little effort to tell apart since the wire itself is copper in both strands. I’d order the product again but from someone who ships faster – there was no resason for this to take so long to arrive.